The Voldemort Effect

In the Harry Potter books, the titular boy wizard is the subject of a mystical prophecy, destined to come into mortal conflict with the evil Lord Voldemort—and perhaps even capable of vanquishing him. But there’s a wrinkle: One of Harry’s classmates, Neville Longbottom, also fits most of the prophecy’s description: born at the end of the seventh month, to parents who defied Voldemort three times. The prophecy adds, however, that “the Dark Lord will mark him as his equal”—which he does to Harry, in the failed attack that leaves the infant Harry with his iconic lightning-bolt scar. But that attack had only occurred because Voldemort, learning of the prophecy, had assumed it applied to the Potter boy, not little Neville. In other words, as Harry’s sage mentor Dumbledore notes at one point, it was Voldemort’s choice to regard Harry as his predestined foe that made it true.

There’s a similar phenomenon in American politics, which I long ago mentally dubbed The Voldemort Effect. Maybe it’s always been this way, but it seems like especially recently, if you ask a strong political partisan—conservatives in particular, in my experience—which political figures they like or admire, and why, they’ll enthusiastically cite the ability to “drive the other side crazy.” Judging by online commentary, this seems to be an enormous part of Sarah Palin’s appeal. Palin herself certainty seems to understand this. Her favorite schtick, the well to which she returns again and again, is: “Look how all the mean liberals are attacking me!” Weekly Standard writer Matt Continetti even titled his book about the ex-governor “The Persecution of Sarah Palin.” Perversely, liberals end up playing a significant role in anointing conservative leaders.

This is, I think, a bipartisan phenomenon everyone at least subconsciously recognizes: A political figure—though more often a pundit than an actual candidate or elected official—gains prominence largely as a function of being attacked or loathed with special vehemence by the other side. Which means it’s crying out for a convenient shorthand so we can talk about it more easily; I propose “The Voldemort Effect.”

I had the sense that a year or so back, the Obama administration was rather cannily trying to exploit the Voldemort Effect deliberately, treating Rush Limbaugh as the de facto conservative/Republican leader in hopes that conservatives would fall in line, precisely because Limbaugh is very popular with the conservative base and not so much with everyone else. Which, incidentally, is a danger of the Voldemort Effect: It tends to encourage the base to embrace polarizing figures who turn off moderates, which I suspect is why it is normally observed with pundits (who can do that and remain successful) rather than with candidates.

29 responses so far ↓

Additional correspondence on the conservative side: the tendency to believe in prophecies.

If this catches on like EC did (unlikely; not nearly obscure enough a reference!), it’ll be similarly misunderstood. “They call it the ‘Voldemort effect’ when people gravitate towards scary and evil public figures!”

One of the standing principles behind today’s right wing is to do things for no other reason than to anger liberals. You see it in advertisements for right-wing talk radio: “Liberals HATE us!” It’s how they roll.

Narcissists like Palin and the Tea Party thrive on attention, any attention, even negative. The best thing we can do when confronted with Palin’s latest idiocy is to quote Reagan: “Oh, Sarah. There you go again.” And then you ignore her.

Palin, Limbaugh, and their ilk are trolling. They are the comment trolls of politics. They are not trying to add to the conversation (let alone govern), they are trying to piss people off and self-aggrandize – it brings them money and fame.

There is a theory going around that this is what the Wesboro Baptist Church are up to. They don’t beleive that God Hates Fags, they are just trolling and lawsuit baiting:

Brings to mind this quote from early 2008, which has stuck with me ever since:

“One reason I support Barack Obama is that I think he’s much better positioned to pick up some of the pieces of the shattered GOP coalition, against either McCain or Romney, than HRC is. She could well be the only person in the world capable of re-forging that coalition. Think of her as the Republican unity candidate.”

“Is it? I’ll admit, when the climactic duel turned into an analysis of wand ownership under wizard property law, I sort of zoned out…”

Well, he delivers the killing blow in the sense that he cuts the head off Voldemort’s snake, the last cruxis, with Gryffindor’s sword. I suppose you could say the destruction of V is a joint enterprise.

Ah, c’mon Julian. Stop with the Both Sides stuff. I notice you did not even bother to try to list an example of a liberal who is liked by liberals primarily because he or she pisses off the right.

I’m not saying the principle doesn’t exist, but it sure isn’t widespread, and further, there is just about no Dem/lib politician or major media figure a large part of whose shtick is “you should like me, because I infuriate conservatives!”

To the extent that we have anyone of prominence on the left who does particularly irritate the right (such as Krugman, Maddow, Olbermann, Stewart, and Colbert — no politicians really come to mind), we like these people mostly because we see them as being rare birds who don’t hide behind he-said/she-said narratives, but rather say what we think should be said.

You can disagree with how well these people do this, but I don’t think you can dispute that they’re popular because of an annoy-the-right approach.

[Added] In thinking about this a little more, I suppose I can concede that some of the popularity of the figures I listed, as well as, say, Nancy Pelosi, has been enhanced by the wingnuts’ demonization of them. So I do buy your main point, just not a part of how you led up to it.

I spent a considerable amount of 2005-2008 trying to convince my fellow Democrats to nominate John Edwards because he’d be palatable to Republican-voting Bubba from Alabama. Given subsequent revelations, it surely wouldn’t have worked.

But anyway, the point is: being palatable to Bubba was a feature, not a bug. That was accepted by the vast majority of my Democratic interlocutors.

The only problem with this thesis is Palin started out not persecuted as much as she was vetted by the public after being chosen by McCain but failed miserably in the first moments – no different than any other candidate would if he or she were an unknown to most. Most had already heard of Biden when Obama picked him; no one (who isn’t a complete nerd or pays attention to all state politics) had heard of Palin before McCain picked her. The thing that really set Palin apart was she started whining about persecution practically from the start — right after the many public blunders started occurring (which was right after she was picked for the candidacy).

Harry Potter never whined about typical politics as if he were especially targetted beyond the norm.

As a matter of fact Harry Potter, despite the persecution, didn’t start whining about being picked on his oppressors until about the fourth book… in real-time, that’s a few Palin years. If the thesis would actually fit what happened to Palin, she would have taken all the persecution with stride and eventually became a bitter old man like McCain did. She probably would have done less harm to McCain’s candidacy if that were the case. Everyone loves a Harry Potter.